Describes the origin and development of the McGill School of Medicine and the extraordinary staff whose progrssive ideas made it one of the best teaching and research centres in North America.

This second volume in the history of the McGill University Medical School begins a few years before the opening of the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1894 and traces the major developments in the institution's second half century. At the beginning of this period the McGill Faculty of Medicine was already ranked as among the best in North America, but its reputation had declined by World War I. During the next twenty years major reforms created new research laboratories, expanded library facilities, and continued modernization of the Royal Victoria Hospital. The Montreal Neurological Institute was opened, a children's hospital was established, and the Montreal General Hospital was expanded. McGill Medicine is also the story of the doctors and administrators who made all this happen: visionaries such as Principal Sir Arthur Currie and Dr C.F. Martin, who shepherded the concept of full-time faculty through the various approval processes of the school; Dr J.C. Meakins, who became, in 1924, the first full-time professor of medicine; and Dr Wilder Penfield, the founder and first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute. The book ends just before WWII, by which time McGill again held an enviable place among the world's medical teaching institutions.

The appointment of John William Dawson as principal in 1855 brought modern ideas of education to Montreal, and he imparted to the emerging institution his own deeep commitment to science. The Molson Hall in 1862, the first Medical School on campus in 1872, the Redpath Museum in 1882, the Macdonald Physics Building, the Redpath Library, and the Macdonald-Workman Engineering Building, all in 1893 were the major external evidences of the great intellectual advances that had been made. Equally, the admission of women students in 1884 marked the immense social developments in Montreal society. An early contribution to elementary teaching through the work of the McGill Nornal School was followed by the institution of examinations for a far-flung network of affiliated secondary schools and by the encouragement and supervision of local colleges. By the time Dawson retired in 1893 McGill's influence was already reaching across the new Dominion of Canada, and the university was ready to make the transition into the twentieth century.

Medicine and Duty is the World War I memoir of Harold McGill, a medical officer in the 31st (Alberta) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. McGill attempted to have his memoir published by Macmillan of Canada in 1935, but unfortunately, due to financial constraints, the company was not able to complete the publication. Decades later, editor Marjorie Norris came upon a draft of the manuscript in the Glenbow Archives and took it upon herself to resurrect McGills story. Norris's painstaking archival research and careful editing skills have brought back to light a gripping first-hand account of the 31st Battalion and, on a larger scale, of Canada's participation in World War I. A wealth of additional information, including extensive notes and excerpts from letters written "from the trenches," lends a new sense of immediacy and realism to the original memoir, and provides a fascinating, harrowing glimpse into the day-to-day life of Canadian soldiers during the Great War.